Aldridge jump from C1

November 16, 2005

Kroeger talked to West Tuesday morning and was unsure if he would enroll early. West would like to play his senior season of baseball, as well as attend the prom. "You've got so many factors that weigh into this thing," Kroeger said. As far as uncommitted players go, Notre Dame remains involved with at least one player who has expressed an interest to enroll early. Klein, Texas offensive lineman Chris Stewart, who is expected to announce his college choice on Thursday between Notre Dame and Texas A&M, has made it known that he wants to enroll at the semester. While there was no written policy prohibiting the school from accepting students at the semester, it had not previously been done for decades. "It's never been set in stone, and it's never really been questioned for a number of years why we haven't done it," said Notre Dame assistant provost and director of admissions Dan Saracino, who cannot discuss individual students. "So we called a number of key parties together on campus -- administrators and faculty -- and took a look at it and decided that we should be open to individual cases where we felt that the student would be a good choice for this kind of enrollment." Administrators, however, had been aware of the growing trend. "This didn't come out of the clear blue," Saracino said. "We really had been watching and observing what's been going on for the last eight years or so." In fact, Saracino said, a player was considered for early enrollment last year. "At that time we said, 'You know what, it probably would work, but it's going to have to be a student that we really feel good about academically,'æ" Saracino said. "And the individual that we reviewed last year just didn't appear to be strong enough or have the proper overall record that we would have expected. "But when we left the discussion that we had last year, it was the idea that it's probably going to happen, but we just need to be comfortable with the students that we make the exception for. "We're looking at it on an individual case-by-case basis. And we're surely open to other students. We're not just doing this for football. I guess we looked at this as an opportunity to look at the whole issue of not admitting students in January. "Is this going to be a plan to open it up in a big way? Not at all. We are definitely open to admitting individual students with good reason in January, but we do not expect it to be more than a few. And by that, I definitely mean a few."